


empire of dirt

by evocates



Category: Les Misérables (Dallas 2014), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Breathplay, Comeplay, Dubious Consent, Facials, Gunplay, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Rough Sex, Self-Destruction, Self-Hatred, Strangulation, Suicidal Thoughts, Unsafe Sex, Watersports (threat of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 20:13:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5062492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evocates/pseuds/evocates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt: “Javert goes to a bar for random strangers for anonymous restroom sex.”</p><p>Title from <i>Hurt</i> by Nine Inch Nails, but particularly inspired by the Johnny Cash cover. Trick for Esteliel for Trick or Treat 2015.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Esteliel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/gifts).



> **Warnings** (expanded from the tags): Unsafe sexual situations with rather extreme, non-negotiated kinks and dubious consent. Said kinks: comeplay, facials, gunplay, threat of watersports, strangulation taken as breathplay, sex without condoms, rough sex with blood involved that’s not bloodplay. Also extremely high levels of self-loathing, self-destruction, and death wish, none of which mild enough to even use ‘tendencies’. 
> 
> This fic is filthy enough to be tossed immediately into a landfill. I'm sorry, Esteliel. I hope I didn't go too far for you. 
> 
> Oh, and: plot of some sort, plenty of OCs, nebulous modern setting that’s either inspired by Gotham or is actually Gotham. I'm 1000% much better at writing fictional America than real America.

“You fucking slut.”

Javert chokes. The cock in his mouth is heavy, pressing against the inside of his cheeks, shoving into the back of his throat and cutting off his breathing. He scrabbles at the hairy thighs right in his face.

“You like this, don't you? You're born just to have a cock shoved into your mouth, aren't you?”

A hand digs into his hair, gripping tight onto the strands as hips thrust even harder forward. Javert gags: the restroom stinks of piss and shit, the skin of the cock in his mouth is bitter and smells of sour sweat. The head of it digs into his throat. 

His own cock throbs heavy between his legs, every beat of his heart pulsing through it, roaring in his ears. God, he hasn't even taken off his pants, and he's going to fucking come if the guy keeps talking like this.

“Old man like you, still a fucking comeslut. You're a damned disgrace.”

It takes all of his willpower to not nod, to not agree. A guy like this, Javert has learned, will take any encouragement as a turn-off. Instead, he groans, letting out the pain and nothing of the pleasure. His nails dig into thighs, trying to shake his head.

The guy pulls out of his mouth. Javert's head snaps to the side as a slap hard enough to be a punch lands on his cheek. He barely has the time to recognise what is happening before his hair is grabbed again, his head held still. Distantly, he hears the sound of a hand rubbing frantically over skin.

Come splatters all over his face. He keeps his eyes open. The guy's face is blurred - it doesn't fucking matter - but Javert can see his cock. He sees how it's twitching, white spurting out of it, and he feels the lukewarm texture land on his nose, his cheeks, his mouth. On his fucking eyelids.

“Your mouth isn't good enough for my come, you slut.”

Javert hears the restroom door lock slide open, then it's slammed shut. Some sort of instinct has him crawling forward, smearing his jeans with the filth of the ground. He leans his shoulder against the flimsy plastic even as his hands tug at buttons, nearly pulling them off from sheer need.

It takes him only two pulls of his cock before he's coming, splattering all over the plastic tiles that gleam sick-yellow under the too-bright fluorescent lights. His cock is red and throbbing, and Javert strokes it even as his nerves scream from the overstimulation. It twitches, the last dribbles of thick white dripping onto his hand. 

He raises it. Smears it over his own face, mixing it with that guy's come. Slowly, deliberately, he rubs it over his skin. If he concentrates, he can feel it seep into his pores, digging straight into his bones. Filth with filth; it's fitting. But not enough, so he drags the thick drips down into his mouth, fingers crawling over his lips before he sucks them in. 

Outside of the door, he hears footsteps. He hears the rocking of walls, stifled moans and groans from other men having sex. He hears the sound of piss hitting porcelain. But all of it seems to come from worlds away, because he's focused now. Focused on the taste of salt and bitterness on his tongue, the heavy slide of it whenever he swallows. Focused on the smell of sex sticking to his skin, mixing with the filth of the restroom.

His heart starts to calm from the thunder it has been for the past three days he has been denying himself this. 

When there's no more come on his face, Javert tucks himself in. He walks out of the restroom and splashes water over his face.

Next time he sees that guy, he'll arrest him, he tells himself. He'll bring his badge to this bar and clean it out like it deserves to be. 

Even as he forms the words in his head, they’re twisting, unravelling like cat’s cradle into: _Next time I see him, I'm going to ask him to do that again._

He never learns.

***

In the morning, he goes to work.

There's been talk about a new drug ring coming up. New patrols have been posted at the docks, but nothing new has been coming up. Javert would volunteer for the patrols, but after the long bath he tried to take in the Bay, Chabouillet hadn’t allowed him even within a hundred feet of any bodies of water.

Speak of the devil.

“That’s a nice bruise you’ve got there,” his superior says.

Javert blinks. His confusion must have shown, because Chabouillet motions vaguely towards his cheek. He pokes at the general area, and winces when pain bursts beneath his eyelids. He pushes at it with greater force.

“I got it in a bar,” he says.

Chabouillet’s eyebrow rises. “Oh? You haven’t been assigned to any bar raids lately, though.”

He shrugs, and turns away. “Sometimes,” he says, every word over-large and pressing against the insides of his mouth, “I have a social life.”

It’s not a lie. Not technically. He _does_ go to the bar to meet people, though there has never been much of social niceties. Not the kind that Chabouillet would think about, anyway. He doubts that his superior would consider greeting someone with, “Hi, want to fuck?” to be in any way social.

So it’s a damned lie after all.

A hand lands on his shoulder. Javert stifles an instinctive flinch, just barely.

“Good, I’m glad to hear that,” Chabouillet says. His hand nudges, and Javert turns around – it’s unspoken, but the order is clear enough.

“Take care of yourself, alright? Don’t make an old man worry about you.”

The stench of sewers assault his nose. There is a weight between his outstretched hands. Metal and oil on his tongue, decades-familiar. A pair of wide, dark eyes hover, ghost-like and too real at the same time, in front of him.

Javert swallows, and looks away again.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” he says. He sounds too brusque to be polite, but that’s… that’s normal, isn’t it? He clears his throat, and shrugs off the hand on his shoulder.

“I think I have a lead for one of the storage locations of the drug ring,” he says. He bites back _: Can I go now?_

Chabouillet’s eyes burn against his back as he strides away. Javert shoves his hands into his pockets. They are not trembling, he tells himself.

But he has never been good at lying.

***

The next time he goes to the bar - a dingy thing in one of the worst districts in the city, with shitty music no one listens to because everyone knows what everyone else is there for - he approaches a guy wearing a suit. He's even broader and taller than Javert himself, towering over every single person in the damned bar. By the way he's moving, Javert knows that he has a gun. Probably unlicensed.

But he has forgotten his badge back at home. So no matter how much he wants to, there is no way that he can arrest them.

When they reach the restroom, Javert realises that he has made a mistake. Man-with-Gun is bald, his scalp shiny with sweat under the yellow lights. He opens his mouth, about to protest, but Gun is already grabbing him by the arm, kicking the door of a stall open and dragging him inside.

He is on his knees before he realises it. His mouth is already half-opened when he registers the sound of a lowering zip.

“You asked for this,” Gun says. And there it is, the metal, gleaming against thick fingertips, the same oily black as the tattoos on his skin. Javert looks up, eyes automatically narrowing.

But he can’t speak. He can’t, because there is a hand on his jaw, shoving it open. The gun tastes of metal and gritty oil on his tongue. He lurches forward immediately, wrapping his lips around the barrel. His cheeks hollow as he starts to suck.

It’s nothing like a cock. The metal is too cold, barely warning up from the touch of his skin and breath. The ridges are hard and cold. It does not respond whatsoever to the slide of his tongue, or even the vibrations of his half-strangled moans. 

“Fuck. Fuck, you like this, don’t you?”

The length, however, is almost the same. If he lets his eyes fall half-shut like this, he can pretend. The barrel shoves in even further, nudging at his throat. He gags. His vision swims; orange intrudes at the corner. He relaxes his throat and lets it slide in, tipping his head backwards to ease it downwards. 

“You fucking slut. I should’ve known the moment I looked at you.”

Rough cloth, bunching muscles. The sounds of shifting cloth. The guy is gone entirely, his bulk dissipating. Javert looks up and meets that gaze, wild and dark with hatred, a certain stillness of the body he has never seen with anyone else. There’s a glint of teeth – half a snarl, half a smile; he doesn’t know which and doesn’t care.

He doesn’t look away from that smile, trying too steady the wobbling edge of white teeth by sheer will. In his mouth, the gun shoves to the side. It smacks against his teeth, the force reverberating through his head before he can open his mouth wide enough. 

“Take it.”

Hard flesh nudges against his lips. Calluses on his jaw. The man’s voice is now pitched a little higher and lower at the same time: a beast growing.

He opens his mouth and lets the cock slide in between his lips. His jaw aches from the stretch – too much, too damned much. Metal and sweat fill his nose. There’s orange everywhere; it would be as if the sun has filled the small world of this filthy stall if not for the sheer artificiality of it. Too bright, too stark, especially against the tanned, dark skin peeking from the sleeves. 

The gun slides out of his mouth. A hand sinks into his hair, gripping tight. Javert looks at it out of the corner of his eyes. There is ink on the wrist where there should be scars, so he looks away. Instead, he focuses on sucking, burying his nose deep into rough, sour-smelling hair. Fire-scented metal slides over his cheek, streaking skin with his own spit.

Javert chokes when the barrel presses over his throat.

“I wonder if you’ll be so good at this if you’re dead.”

_You won’t do it,_ he thinks. The smell of the sewers. A man dressed in black and in filth, but light shining through his eyes. A good man’s eyes. A good man’s hand on his shoulder – the briefest touch, but one hot enough to scorch him. There’s a scar on the curve there that no one can see, but he feels whenever he moves.

His hand bunches the orange prison jumpsuit beneath his hands. He turns his head, nuzzling against the length of the gun against his neck even as he draws the cock even deeper inside. A gag threatens, but stifling it is almost automatic by now. The spasms of his throat draw out a groan that rings out around him, surrounding him, wrapping him in the sound until he’s almost, _almost_ warm.

“I should piss in your mouth instead of coming in it.

Javert moans again. Warning bells screech in his mind. He ignores them.

_I’ll let you do anything._ Javert never lies, and perhaps this will be a cleansing. Sewer, stall, self: what’s the difference in the end?

“But you’ll like it too much, you fucking slut.”

There’s a _click_ , so close to his ears. The smell of gunpowder is suddenly stronger. Javert pulls back on the cock in his mouth, swirling his tongue around the head. The taste is bitter, but too light on the tongue that has gotten used to far weightier things. (Lies, cock, secrets: what’s the difference?)

He doesn’t flinch against the gun that’s ready, so damned ready, to shoot. Instead, he nuzzles even more against it, smearing the saliva over his cheek further. He knows he looks obscene. Distantly, he wonders what his obituary will look like if he dies here.

“ _Fuck_.”

There’s that _click_ again. Javert barely has time to feel disappointed before it clatters to the floor. Two hands grip hold of his head. He lets himself be pushed down; lets himself be choked by the twitching cock in his throat as come fills his mouth, spilling over his lips and forcing its way down his throat. 

Closing his eyes, he swallows. A spectre hovers in front of him: hairless scalp, orange cloth, defiance bright in dark eyes. Gentle hands and tears beading on eyelids. A gun pressed against his chest. His own gun. Someone else’s. He doesn’t know which and it doesn’t matter anymore. He has been waiting for it to go off for so long.

The cock eventually pulls out of him. The softening head slides over his jaw, dirtying his face even further. Javert lets his head drop downwards, chin against chest. His hands have fallen somehow on his own knees. They clench, digging into flesh and bone through the cloth of his jeans.

Dirt under his nails. He’ll have to clean them.

“God, you’re too fucked in the head for even someone like me.”

Footsteps. The scrape of metal against cheap plastic tiles. The door opens, and closes. More footsteps. The sounds of flush. Tiny droplets splash over his skin: is that his imagination, or is that reality?

Javert lets his spine bend. His cock throbs hard in his pants; he ignores it. He presses his cheek against the door. He drags two fingers over his cheek, then down past his swollen, aching lips. He sucks on them.

But the taste of metal is gone. The gun is gone. The orange is already fading, sewer-stench fading into restroom-stink.

His own gun is back at his apartment. But it won’t be the same.

He’s not going to get to come tonight.

***

There is always dirt on his jeans that shines underneath the pale yellow lights of the bar. It sticks against the material, stains it irrecoverably; he won’t be able to wear them anywhere else. But that’s fine, really, because he bought this pair just for this place.

His cock shifts against the roughness of the denim with every step, but Javert ignores it. He goes to the bar and buys a beer – his usual brand – and leans an elbow against the bar as he watches.

The first time he came here, it was genuinely for reconnaissance. There had been rumours about rallies being held in the area, and if there’s anything Javert has learned in years of police work, it is that tongues are at their loosest in bars. 

So nowadays he tries to pretend that he’s still here for the same thing: his eyes scan the crowds, taking in the pretty, almost-too-young boys leaning supposedly artistically against tables and walls, leather covering some of them from head to toe. He watches the men hiding in the corners, head ducked down and fingers trailing the rims of their glasses, lifting up their heads every minute or so to watch the boys before staring into their drinks again. He watches the brutes sprawled over booths and chairs, a hand on their thigh or shamelessly rubbing over their cocks, a whiskey bottle held in the other.

There are plenty of men like these; plenty of clubs like these. Once, Javert had never stepped into them except to do his job: recon, raids, all the same in the end. But now… now he’s drawn back here, again and again.

He never goes for the boys or the men. It’s always the brutes he heads straight for.

(There was one, weeks ago, who had him kneel on the bar floor right there and suck him off. He poured his whiskey over Javert’s head afterwards, and made him lick off the drips on the floor.

It’s a damned pity he never came back.)

The _thud_ of a heavy glass on stone jerks him out of his thoughts. Javert turns. 

“You’re one of the few people I keep seeing around here,” the bartender says.

He’s a white man probably in his late fifties, a few years older than Javert himself. His arms are covered in bright tattoos in some kind of Celtic pattern he doesn’t recognise. Blond hair, streaked with grey, goes down to his shoulders, and there’s eyeliner on his lids that somehow suits him. There’s a strange lilt in his voice, a certain drawl over the hard vowels.

Javert takes the beer and wets his lips with it. It’s not to his tastes; it’s just something he orders to have the excuse to stay. 

“My name is Frank,” the bartender says. He holds out his hand.

“Do you always give your name to those who didn’t ask for it?” Javert asks instead of taking it.

Frank laughs, throwing his head back. A heavy strand of his hair slips over his shoulder. “Only those who are my type,” he says, and smiles.

Hand stilling on his glass of beer, Javert stares. He’s not an idiot; he knows a come-on when he sees one. He’s had a lot of practice giving them lately, after all.

The bartender smiles. The corner of it twitches. _Uncertainty, weakness_ , Javert’s policeman-brain says. This is not a man who will hold him down and threaten to crush his throat. 

He drains the beer.

“Not interested,” he says. He leaves the money, and leaves the bar.

When he crosses the door, he nearly trips over the steps. Too many nights with insufficient sleep, he thinks, cursing his own body’s weaknesses; he doesn’t think any more about it.

He goes home. Like every night when he visits the bar, he sleeps without dreams.


	2. Part Two

Javert slides his fingers over the wooden table. There is no dust.

“They can’t have been gone for more than a damned day,” he says, unable to keep the frustration out of his voice. His hand clenches into a fist, and he barely resists slamming it against the wood.

The still-abandoned warehouse is barely twenty miles north-northwest from the docks – barely any distance for a drug ring that Javert suspects has cartel backing and thus could easily buy out the lower ranks of the police along with the managers of the dock security. Javert had followed a recent lead – tracks, witnesses around the area talking about trucks regularly traversing a pathway leading to a forested area bought four years ago for development but showing no sign of any construction whatsoever – and he was sure, _is_ sure, that they would still be here.

“You think there has been a lead.”

Montoya’s arms are crossed, leaning against the wall. She’s frowning as well, brows creased.

This case wouldn’t be so high up on their priority list if not for the fact that the ring isn’t smuggling marijuana or even meth or cocaine. It’s a new formula: a paralysis drug that leaves consciousness behind while it locks the victims in their own bodies. They first received news about it from the high-piling cases of sexual assaults coming in from bars even in the better areas of the city.

Javert drags a hand over his hair. “There’s no other reason for it,” he says curtly. When Montoya raises an eyebrow, he shakes his head.

“Look, I _know_ they’ve been coming here. The tracks don’t lie. Neither do the signs of habitation in this place.” There still was a multi-plug adaptor stuck into one of the walls, for God’s sake. Javert has taken it for evidence, of course, but he doubts that it will give rise to any useful lead.

“I’m not doubting you about that,” Montoya says. She doesn’t try to soothe, which is a good thing, because Javert would’ve snapped at her for that, partner or not.

Pushing away from the wall, she walks towards the heavy wooden table, splaying her hands flat on the surface. Her eyes stare straight in front of her.

“Thing is, I don’t know how it could’ve leaked out,” she says. “Aside from the two of us, only Chabouillet knew that we were even planning to check out this place. And our reports were all verbal, made in his office – you _know_ that no one else could’ve listened in to it.”

“Maybe we should check his office for bugs,” Javert says.

Montoya’s gaze shoots towards him, her eyes widening. “Don’t you think that’s going too far?”

“No,” Javert says flatly. “There’s a leak. We need to figure out where it comes from before we can figure out this damned case.”

“But _Chabouillet’s office_?”

“Unless you have a confession to make, it’s the clearest lead we’ve got so far. It’s the only logical choice.”

“Look,” Montoya begins. She drags a hand through her hair, exhaling a hard sigh. “Listen to me, you bastard. I know this is the first case you’ve had on your hands since the hospital—”

“I’m going back,” Javert cuts her off, his own voice low and thrumming with an anger the source of which he knows not. “I’m going back, and I’m going to ask Chabouillet to run a bug check on his office. Are you coming, or do I have to do it by myself?”

Her eyes rest on him, their weight almost tangible. Like a collar on his neck. Javert ignores it, forcing his hand to remain unclenched as he stares right back at her.

“Fine,” she says after a stand-off of around three minutes. “Fine. But it’s not just your funeral; it’s mine as well. Keep that in mind.”

“There’s not going to be a funeral,” Javert says, heading out of the door. The one piece of evidence he has from the warehouse bumps against his leg as he walks, reminding him of his failure. Letting him keep back the words:

_Which is a damned pity_.

They drive back to the precinct; Montoya takes the driver’s seat, and Javert doesn’t stop her. He keeps his eyes on the windshield and the passing scenery. He does not let himself tug on the collar of his shirt.

***

His face slams into the stall’s wall. His knees smack against the toilet. The cover opens from the impact, and slaps back down, catching a piece of skin and flesh along with denim. Javert gasps, struggling instinctively, but the broad hand on his neck forces him to stay there, unmoving.

“You wanted a fuck. This is how I fuck.”

The voice is something familiar. Same pitch, but tobacco-roughened. Smoke curls around his ear, travels down his jaw. The burning embers of the end are held terribly close to the skin of his neck.

“If you wanted something else, you shouldn’t have come to me in the first place.”

Javert tries to shake his head. His forehead rubs against the tiles. There are brown-yellow stains there, seeping into his skin and past his bones, straight into his mind. They spreads out, spider-like. He swallows back the laugh growing in his throat. _Don’t let him know you like it_ , he chides himself. 

Men like that, they’ll stop if they know that they’re doing exactly what he wants them to.

He struggles. Out of the corner of his eyes, he catches the briefest glimpse of a pinstriped suit. “Stop,” he says, pitching his voice higher. “Stop it. I didn’t ask for this!”

Suit grabs him by his collar, dragging him backwards before spinning him around. Javert’s back slams against the wall this time, his spine arching to avoid being touched by the toilet. 

The man looking at him smiles. It looks terribly gentle, and his hand on Javert’s jaw has no calluses. The touch is tender, almost, before Suit clenches tight, fingers digging into skin and bones and muscles, forcing Javert’s mouth open as a cry escapes.

“I really doubt that.” A hand tugs at Javert’s jeans. A button loosens from the thread; the _clink-clink_ it makes on the tiles is almost hypnotic.

“Slut like you, without even underwear…” the hand curves, grabbing Javert’s cock. The touch, so unfamiliar, forces Javert’s spine to arch even further. His head smacks against the wall. “You’re hard already.”

There are arguments, he knows. Just because he’s hard doesn’t mean he wants this. But he does; he does, so much. His heart is drumming in his ears, his blood roaring in his veins. 

“Stop,” he whines. His legs spread wider. “I don’t want this.”

The cloth of his shirt bunches again as he is pushed to face the wall again. His nose and mouth are pressed right against it. Stench of piss and shit fills his lungs, sinking deep into him, writing its filth over his bones. Javert arches, trying to turn his head back even as he finds his ass being pried open by almost-dry fingers.

The cock shoves into him without prep. He grits his teeth, forcing himself to open, to relax. He _wants_ this: the stretch, the burn, the pain. The tearing skin and the blood starting to ease the way. Metal in the air, so much better than even a gun. He tries to breathe through the _want, want, want_ in his ears. His hands claw at the wall, gathering dirt.

Out of the corner of his eyes, the pinstripes are fading away, leaving only beige behind. The man he has chosen this time is just slightly shorter, but he shrinks even further, skin darkening. He bites back a sob as he’s thrust into, again and again, trying to hold on.

“You’re worse than any whore I’ve had.” The voice is quiet, calm, and so, so steady. “At least they ask for payment before asking for it.”

His eyes prickle with tears. A sob escapes him, helplessly. He shoves an arm under his face, biting onto his sleeve. But it’s no use – the next thrust drags another sob from him. All the cloth does is to collect those tears, and remind him of their presence with every breath.

“Shhh. Shhhhh.”

The voice shifts, distorts in the air. Gentle and kind and yet so very distant, always out of reach. A beige suit jacket hovers at the back of his eyelids; a sharp contrast against the thick, heavy calluses of the hands. Every movement surely draws back the sleeve to expose the scars, but he has never seen those. He has never had a good enough imagination.

“No,” he sobs out. “No.”

It’s a better word than _yes_.

The hand strokes over his hair. Javert gasps, tilting towards it, and the air strangles in his throat when those fingers clench over his collar, grip tightening. Cloth cuts into his skin, pressing against his windpipe, and he cannot breathe.

Stars burst behind his eyes, bright and stark against the darkening grey. He claws at the walls helplessly. His head falls forward, then back. He tries to find a way to breathe but he can’t, he _can’t_. And the cock inside him is still moving, still thrusting. It slides in and out of him, gritty and harsh. His hole is aching and burning and _bleeding_ and he cannot- he cannot breathe.

The wall is gone; he no longer sees it. There is only a man with a soft smile and a gentle hand on his cheek. So warm, so _affectionate_ , even as his other hand squeezes hard on his throat. 

_Please_ , he mouths. _Please_.

_Valjean, please._

Darkness spikes, reaching outwards, swallowing up the world piece by piece. Until- until only Valjean is left, still smiling, still touching his cheek. Still strangling him. 

Javert comes without a touch on his cock. The orgasm rips through him, like a hand digging past his skin to grip his spine and pull it straight out. A strangled scream echoes in his ears, barely human, and he sobs even harder as the arm tightens around his waist, pressing him harder against a broad chest. Impaling him even deeper on the cock still moving inside him.

All he can do is to claw at the wall, gasping with every thrust. The man behind him finally comes, spurting deeply inside him, and Javert groans. He presses his sleeve to his nose, his mouth, and he cannot even smell the salt of the tears past the hand still on his throat.

When the grip loosens, he falls. His knees hit the ground with a hard _smack_ , the impact juddering through him. There will be bruises. His lungs seize as he tries to gasp for breath. His neck aches from every movement. 

There will be bruises there too: too many, and too high, for him to hide with the collar of his shirt.

Suit’s hand settles in his hair, stroking down the strands to curl around the base of his neck. Javert looks up, eyes half-lidded.

“I’ve been coming here for a while,” the man says. “And I’ve met a lot of guys who get off on fucked up things.”

The hand shifts, sliding over his face. The thumb presses over his lip. Javert darts out his tongue, and licks against it. A chuckle echoes around him.

“But you… You might just be as fucked up as I am.”

He steps away. Javert’s head remains tilted in that position: towards him. There’s nothing for him to say. All words have deserted him long ago.

Besides, if he speaks, the spectre hovering at the edge of his vision, in that beige suit, might just leave.

“Come ask me again. I liked this.”

The door smacks against the frame as he leaves. Javert lets himself close his eyes for a single second. Then he reaches over and locks the door again.

Like this, on his knees, his throat aching with every breath… Like this, with the ghost of a gentle touch still lingering in his hair… He covers his mouth, but it’s not enough to shove the sobs back in. His tears drop onto the floor, mixing with the filth on it, creating little puddles of brown and yellow.

Slowly, he slides his fingers over it. Then he draws them from one side of his neck to the next.

But it’s too late. The weight is already gone. The ghost at the corner of his eyes has already retreated.

It’s never enough. He needs to stop this.

He needs even more than this.

***

A glass of beer lands near his elbow.

“I didn’t order this,” Javert says.

The bartender – _Frank_ , he reminds himself, because men with names are men he’s not going to fuck – smiles at him. He hands out a cigarette along. Javert stares at it.

“This is thanks,” Frank says. His smile widens a little. “You might not mean to, but you’ve been keeping quite a few of the boys safe.”

He barely manages to keep his reaction down to an arch of the eyebrow. “What do you mean?” he asks. It’s a damned good thing that no one else can hear how hard his heart is beating.

“The guys you go for,” Frank says, hesitating a little. Then he jerks his head a little towards the booth seats. “Those guys, they are… they’re too rough for most of the boys. Sometimes they even go for the newer ones, the ones who have no idea what they’re doing. But you ask them, and you take their attention away from the boys.”

His hand offering the cigarette is still steady, the filter pointing unerringly towards Javert. Javert keeps staring. His instincts tell him the man is being sincere, but that’s almost too ridiculous.

Grabbing the cigarette, he puts it between his teeth. When Frank offers the lighter, he doesn’t lean in: instead, he takes it, and lights up himself.

The smoke tastes plastic-heavy and too light at the same time, filling his mouth far too little. He exhales, and watches as the cloud obscure Frank’s face.

“That’s not what I mean to do,” he says.

“Do you mind if…” Frank takes a deep breath. “Why do you go for those guys?”

_Because they offer pain and shame and filth and nothing else. Because that’s all I deserve._

Resting his elbow on the bar, Javert smiles. He takes a deep drag of the cigarette, letting the smoke touch the insides of his cheeks before he blows it outwards to Frank’s face. It’s been years since he has smoked, but some things, like riding a bicycle or sucking cock, never go away.

“They turn me on,” he drawls. “Is that disappointing to you?”

He’s a lot better at seduction now than he had been before this place. His smile widens when his chest aches with the shame.

“Just a little,” Frank says. His voice is light, but his eyes are cast down to the counter behind the bar. “I wasn’t kidding when I said that you were my type, you know.”

Javert looks at him, taking in the long grey-blond hair, the coloured tattoos on his arms, the lines around his eyes, and the paleness of his skin. He’s different, very much so, but there are still similarities: the broadness of the shoulders, the roughness of the hands.

Maybe there are just so many variations of the one man he can’t help thinking about that he will never be able to find someone who is different enough. Maybe all of the illusions he has been having are simply a sign that he has been going the wrong way about things.

He turns away, looking around the bar again. Montoya said this afternoon, after they scanned Chabouillet’s office and came up with nothing, that there’s a likelihood that the drug ring is moving into this particular neighbourhood.

“Is the offer still open?”

If nothing else, he can pump the guy for some kind of information. It will be fitting, after all: he knows now that he has never been anything but a complete bastard.

Frank jerks, looking up with his eyes wide. His mouth opens and closes a few times. Javert takes another drag of his cigarette.

“Yes,” he says finally.

Javert smiles. It stretches his face out unevenly. “Sure,” he says.

“Why not.”

***

Frank invites him to a nice restaurant at the upper east side of the city for dinner. “I want to have a proper date,” he said, eyes lowered, and Javert found himself agreeing even before he realised that it means a delay of the sex.

Fine. He can be patient for a few hours.

It’s a ritzy enough place that he finds it immediately even without an address: the sign isn’t blinking neon like most of the corner diner-slash-delis that he usually eats at, but the huge awning with the scrawled logo is hard to miss. When he enters, he’s immediately out of place in his ragged jeans, shirt, and black scarf wrapped around his neck.

“They don’t carry the kind of beer you usually drink,” Frank tells him the moment he sits down. It takes Javert five seconds – exactly the amount of time he needs to box up the pain shooting up his spine from his ass – before he realised that his tone is actually _apologetic_. “But if you don’t mind wine, I can give you some recommendations. They have a pretty good list here.”

“No,” Javert says, shaking his head. “I’m not a wine kind of guy. Water will be fine.”

(Even the driest are too sweet. None of them have enough weight. He knows the reason he drinks, and pleasure has never come into it. Not even drunkenness – if he wants that, he goes for whiskey.)

It has been an hour by now and there is a plate of food cooling between Javert’s elbows. Frank is telling him something that he only has the vaguest idea about: a story, perhaps, about a strange client he had in the last bar he worked at.

He knows he should listen. Not out of politeness, because he has never been good with that, but he has agreed to come, he is here, and Javert has never been the kind of man to go halfway with regards to anything.

But it’s hard to concentrate on words when his gaze is fixed upon Frank’s hands. The backs of them are wrinkled, though still clear of spots. The fingers are an oddity for a bartender: there are heavy calluses on the tips, tiny scars on the knuckles. What he finds most interesting is the deep scar on the palm that runs from the base of the thumb to the point at the wrist where he supposes Frank’s pulse is. 

The only kind of men he knows who has scars like these are convicts and soon-to-be convicts; more specifically, members of gangs or criminal organisations. Men who spend most of their time punching, wielding and trying to catch knives, and firing guns with their bare hands. 

“Is the food really that bad, or are you just not hungry?”

“What?” Javert blinks.

Frank waves towards the plate. The shift of his hand turns his palms towards the light. Even in the dim false candlelight, the scar moves and twitches like a living creature under the skin.

“The food,” Frank says. He sounds like he’s repeating himself. “Are you hungry?”

Javert looks down. Oh. He has barely touched his plate. He thought he had mastered the skill of eating automatically by now, but apparently not.

He considers the honest answers he can give: _I don’t eat much nowadays. It’s probably not that bad; I haven’t tasted a bite of it. Can we go to your place now so we can do you’ve brought me out here for?_

He considers, too, the technically honest answers he can give: _I’ve had a late lunch._ (Well, this is his lunch.) _It’s fine; I’m just too focused on you to eat, sorry._ (On your hands, not on anything you said.)

Nothing seems to be right. So he shrugs again, and asks instead, “How did your hands get like that?”

Frank pauses, his fork half-raised towards his mouth. He shoves in the mouthful of food – spaghetti, Javert notes distantly, and realises that the restaurant is Italian – chews, and swallows.

“I used to work as a bouncer,” he says. “That was my job for years, actually, before my body got too old for it, and I ended up behind the bar.”

His lips twitch upwards slightly. “Honestly, the pay’s better as a bouncer.”

There’s a looseness to his shoulders, an easiness to his words, and even a sort of fluidity to the way he cocks his head. He’s not lying.

“Hah,” Javert says. “I see.” 

Why didn’t he think of that? He looks away from Frank, turning towards the window. Through his own skewed, darkened reflection, he sees people walking on the street. He remembers the drug ring, the failed leads and analyses; he remembers the look on Chabouillet’s face when the bug check came up with nothing.

His hand flattens out on his table. He slips it down to his side. He shouldn’t be surprised, really: after the dip in the Bay, he seems to have lost most of his instincts. Or perhaps he has always been wrong, and is only finding it out now. He no longer knows which one it is anymore.

“We don’t have to stay here,” Frank says. Javert’s eyes flick back towards him, and the smile turns a little uncertain at the corners. “I mean… you don’t seem to like this very much. Sorry, I just thought that…”

“It’s fine,” Javert says, shaking his head. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Should I ask what?”

“I don’t think you’ll be interested,” Javert says. That’s another untruth too, because he doesn’t think that at all.

Frank’s eyes rest on him for a moment. When his hand reaches across the table, Javert takes a deep breath and holds it. He focuses on the lump of air in his throat so he will not think about pulling back, or, worse still, lashing out when those rough fingers brush over his wrist.

“Come on then,” he says. “My place or yours?”

“Yours.”

Nodding, Frank waves down a passing waiter. Javert blinks, noticing for the first time that the servers in the restaurant are all male. He shelves that under another observation that he hasn’t managed to make.

They pay the bill; Frank tries to insist on paying, supposedly since Javert barely ate his meal and he’s the one who invited him. But Javert pays anyway, because he has gotten quicker at handing over his card or cash ever since Montoya became his partner.

The ride to Frank’s apartment is silent. Javert stares out of the window and tries to not drum his fingers on his thighs. Out of the corner of his eyes, he watches as the passing streetlamps turn the colours of Frank’s tattoos into different shades. He wishes that it did something for him. He wishes that he was better at pretending that it does, or even that this entire outing was something he wants. He wishes that he wasn’t looking at Frank, at any man, and trying to make-believe him to be someone else.

Frank kisses him when they step through the door. Javert stills, not knowing how to respond for a long moment before he opens his mouth, kissing back. A hand slides into his hair, caressing through the strands. Javert shoves down the urge to pull away. He holds himself still instead, only breaking the kiss when Frank tips his head back.

Then he feels the mouth move to his jaw, scraping over his beard down to his neck, peeling away the scarf. His breath hitches slightly when he feels teeth slide over his pulse beneath the mottled blue-black.

_Bite. Please bite_.

Soft slide of lips over skin. Hint of teeth, so light it barely qualifies as a nip. There’s no heat about this at all. There’s nothing here that makes him want.

Javert closes his eyes. His hands close around shoulders slightly broader than his own, and he pushes Frank away.

“Please, I…” he licks his lips. “I need you to be rougher.”

Frank looks at him. The back of his hand grazes over Javert’s face. The rasp of the skin over his beard is the only roughness of the touch.

“Won’t you let me be gentle with you?” Fingers ghost down the line of his jaw, then back upwards to his ear. “I’m not like the other guys.”

Javert catches that wrist, holding onto it. He takes a step back until he can meet Frank’s eyes without needing to tip his head upwards.

“I don’t want you to be gentle,” he says, barely able to keep his voice even. It wants to shake. There is a strange, almost-familiar feeling in his chest, slowly growing. “I don’t want you to be different. You’ve known what gets me off; what other reason do you have to even try to talk to me?”

Letting out a sigh, Frank drags his hand through his hair. “I told you: you’re my type.”

“You’ve known what gets me off,” Javert says again. “So that can’t be the only reason.”

He lets go of Frank’s wrist. After a moment, he shoves both hands into his pockets to hide the way his nails are biting into his own skin. He forces his breathing to remain steady.

Frank lets out a laugh that trembles in the air, soft and uncertain. He ducks his head down. His now-freed hand rubs over the back of his neck. “I… I guess I thought I could’ve been the one guy who shows you something different,” he says hesitantly. “Treat you how you should be treated.”

Javert wants to laugh as well. He bites it back, and turns it into a smile instead; one baring too many teeth.

“I know exactly how I should be treated,” he says.

Turning, he heads towards the door. But before his hand can even reach for the knob, Frank’s lands on his elbow.

“Sorry. I was… I was wrong about that.” the man says, his voice low and soft. Pitched exactly to be soothing. Javert’s hackles go up immediately.

“But you were the one who brought up the offer, so…” he takes a deep breath. “If not dinner, if not sex, then a drink, at least? Just a drink, and I’ll leave you be afterwards.”

Javert looks at him. Instinctively, he wants to refuse. But Frank is right – he _is_ the one who brought up the offer again even though Frank had been the one to make it. He’s the one who tripped and fell into this mess out of some sort of need for… for what? He’s not even sure anymore.

“Fine,” he says, and manages somehow to not make the word sound grudging. 

Frank gives him a smile that curves up the lines beside his eyes. It’s far too bright for the small thing that he has given, so Javert tugs up the corner of his lips as well.

“I have the beer you like here,” Frank says. “Come in properly? I’ll pour it for you.”

He watches the broad back. He remembers the hands. He remembers Frank’s history. There are possibilities, he knows. There’s more than enough strength to hold him down. There’s more than enough strength to make Javert do whatever he wants him to.

But at the same time, Javert knows his name. He knows his address now, even. He knows the inside of his apartment and how it looks – couch with dark leather upholstery, two shelves of books, a flat-screen television. (Something is wrong with that, he knows, but his instincts have been completely wrong so far, so he dismisses the thought before it can fully form.) He walks inside the house with his shoes off. He knows how these floorboards feel beneath his feet, and the edge of the kitchen’s doorframe against his arm.

And he knows, too, the angle of that wrist as he tips the glass sideways to pour the beer. If he concentrates, he even knows the precise curve of the smile. 

There’s a reason why he has never bothered to learn the names of the men he has fucked. All of this knowledge folds in his mind, creating solidity where there should only be shadows, colours where there should only be monochrome. 

He can’t pretend anymore.

So he drinks the beer and tries to smile. He does not touch the bruises on his neck. He takes the smiles Frank gives and turns them into knives, aimed straight at his chest. He leaves afterwards with bleeding wounds instead of insides, but that’s something he has gotten used to. He tries to smile and does not know what shape his mouth become in the attempt.

Frank’s apartment is on the fourth floor. The weight on his chest has spread to his limbs, and it’s almost an effort to move. But he still pushes himself forward. He does not look back at the man lingering at the doorway even though he can feel the burn of that stare against his shoulder.

One step at a time. He walks out of the building and does not trip on the threshold. He waits on the curb for a cab with his hands hanging by his side. His fingers twitch periodically.

Air is becoming more and more difficult to drag into his lungs. But that’s only the bruises on his throat, a reminder that encloses around him. He rubs his fingers against them, the cotton of his scarf sliding over the swollen skin.


	3. Part Three

Morning sun pours in through the window. His phone is screeching, skittering across his coverlet where he has dropped it last night. Javert looks down on himself, realising that he did not even change out of the clothes he wore to Frank’s. He shoves the thought away, and picks up the phone.

His patrols are evening shift today, so he blinks a little at the familiar number – Montoya’s – before he picks it up.

“I never thought I’d say this,” Montoya says in lieu of a greeting. “But: you need to get to the precinct within the next half hour.”

Javert sits up immediately, rolling over to stand up next to the bed. Pain still twinges up his spine, but he ignores it – it’s far less than it has been. Besides, he seems to have work to do. 

Wedging the phone between his cheek and shoulder, he heads for the closet and grabs his uniform.

“What happened?”

“Remember Petersen and Falk had that club sting yesterday? The one ‘bout the underage kids seen being led into it?”

“Yeah,” Javert nods though she can’t see it. “What’s that got to do with us?”

“They found drugs in that club.” She pauses. “Our drugs.”

Javert stills in mid-motion with only one leg in his pants. He finishes pulling on his trousers as he wedges the phone closer to his neck.

“So they’ve already gotten that close to midtown,” he says. Holding onto his phone with one hand, he pulls off his shirt. It falls to the ground – odd, he had wanted to catch it – and he shoves the phone back into his ear.

“— the obvious,” Montoya is saying. “Look, Falk was actually telling me that the pusher they caught immediately blabbed as much as he can. Probably hoping for a lesser sentence. But anyway, we have some potential names of locations and potential names of pushers. Come over.”

“I’m already on my way.”

It takes him less than twenty minutes to reach the station despite not breaking any traffic laws. He puts on his tie and tie pin in the car, drapes the scarf around his neck after he parks, and yanks his arms through the sleeves of his coat as he walks from the parking lot up to the station proper.

Montoya is at her desk in their shared office, surrounded by paper spread outwards. There’s a map already hanging on the wall, with several red and orange thumbtacks pinpointing certain locations.

“Orange has no corroborating evidence whatsoever,” she explains before he can ask. “Red does.”

“What kind of corroborating evidence?” He moves closer to the map.

“Members of staff with criminal records for drug possession, trafficking, or some kind of sex-related offence,” she shrugs, not looking up from her papers. “I even included those who’ve had restraining orders filed against them. Recent spikes in number of 911 calls from around the area for the past six weeks. History of sexual assaults occurring within premises or originating from it.”

Javert turns towards her. “When did you get this information from Petersen and Falk?” he asks, voice lower but still even.

She finally raises her eyes up to look at him. “Last night,” she says.

Last night. Most likely while he was having that damned date with Frank. Last night when he was doing absolutely nothing _useful_.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

Meeting his gaze for a long moment, she sighs, dragging a hand through her hair. “Because Chabouillet told me not to,” she says.

“What?

“Because Chabouillet—”

“I heard what you said,” he barely resists the urge to slam his hands on her desk. Instead, he puts them there and leans on the wood with just enough weight to make it rock lightly. “I’m asking _why_. Why did Chabouillet tell you that, and why did you decide to obey him?”

Montoya’s eyes meet his again. “Because you fucking insisted on doing a bug sweep of his fucking office, Javert,” she says. “Because you didn’t _stop_ insisting when he first told you no.”

Javert blinks. “I…”

“Look, I get that it’s necessary,” she sighs. “There’s possible corruption everywhere, and the mob influence’s getting stronger. I get it. But the fact that you _immediately_ went to the option that someone might’ve bugged Chabouillet’s office, that they might’ve gotten not just into this precinct, but have long and frequent enough access to his fucking _office_ where he keeps all of our fucking case files and where we discuss all of our cases… that’s disturbing for anyone, Javert. But it’s terrifying when it’s you.”

“It was the logical option,” he tries to protest.

She throws up her hands. “Jesus,” she swears under her breath. Then she takes a deep breath, somehow finding her clam. “Look, I don’t claim to know you well. We barely spoke five words in total before you tried to,” she must’ve seen the look on his face, because she shakes her head rapidly. “Before the Bay. But what I know, what I’m pretty sure the entirety of this city’s police force knows, is this: Javert believes that the police is a force of good. Javert believes in the police. Javert believes in _us_.

“And, hell, you’ve been working at this job for decades. You’ve got more seniority than most of us. And you _still_ believe in it.” She gives a helpless shrug. “Well, the admiration of your hardassedness can fade – because you run people ragged and somehow believe that their lives are nothing but their job – but that? That’s an inspiration. You don’t doubt what we’re doing is good, you don’t doubt the orders of our superiors. That’s fucking reassuring after all the shit we see out there, or when we realise that a buddy pretty much sold you out along with the rest of the squad.”

Taking a breath, she snaps open her pack and shoves a cigarette between her teeth. It doesn’t seem to stop her flow of words; not even when she lights up and takes a drag from it. Javert considers telling her that the precinct has been non-smoking for the entirety of the time she has worked in it, but he gives up even before he begins because there is no point.

“I was actually trying to find a way to approach the topic of how some of the fuckers here don’t deserve their jobs and maybe we should investigate them. Then you suggest bugs in Chabouillet’s office.” She closes her eyes, exhaling a thick cloud that hovers in the air-conditioned room. 

Javert opens his mouth. He closes it. Turning away from her, he shoves open one of the windows. Leaning against the frame, he crosses his arms.

“It’s nice to see I inspire so much faith,” he drawls. “It’s great, it really is, to have both your superior and your partner think that you’re going nuts.”

Montoya blinks. “ _Jesus_ ,” she says empathetically, rubbing a hand over her eyes. “You… never mind.”

Then she walks over to him, leaning against the windowsill with her elbows. When she blows out her smoke, the wind curls it into Javert’s eyes. When she holds it out towards him, he plucks it from her hand and takes a long drag.

“Well,” she says after she gets it back. “Put it this way: yesterday was your legally mandated off-day. Chabouillet is obliged to give it to you.”

She slides her eyes over to him. “Better?”

“Still a crap excuse,” he shrugs. “But better.”

He heads towards the map again. Looking closer, his lips twist: of course most of the highlighted areas are around the lower east side of the city – when has anything been different? He drags a hand through his hair, drawing a circle with a finger of the other before following from one orange thumbtack to the other. If Montoya has already checked out the reds, they can leave them as lower priority.

After a moment, he freezes.

“This bar,” he hears himself say, his voice seeming to come from far away. “I’ve gone to recon here once. There’s a high likelihood that it’s an actual distributing spot.”

Montoya’s shoes click on the floorboards as she walks over. “What do you know about this place?” she asks.

 _Plenty_ , he thinks. _I was with the bartender of this place last night. I’ve been going to this particular place for the past four weeks, more than twice every week, looking for men to use me. I still have bruises on my skin from them._  
  
He swallows. His throat aches. “It’s a pick-up bar for men,” he says. 

When she looks confused, he elaborates. “Men go there to have sex with each other. Usually in the restroom.”

Her nose wrinkles. “That’s disgusting.”

 _You have no idea_.

Shoving his hand into his pocket so he will not tug on his scarf, he clears his throat. “We should hit that one first,” he says. “Tonight.”

It has nothing to do with how much he needs to be rid of this ridiculous addiction. It has nothing whatsoever to do with that. 

Maybe if he tells himself that enough times, it will turn out to be true.

Montoya raises an eyebrow at him. “Why?”

“I went there for recon.” He stares resolutely at the map. “It’s precisely the place you would go if you’re a bastard who would paralyse someone just to fuck them.”

“Way I see it, that applies to every single place in this damned city,” Montoya sighs. She drags over her ashtray, flicking her cigarette above it. “But fine. That’s the one we’ll raid tonight. Full or half squad?”

He bites back the sigh of relief. Instead, he tilts his head, focusing on her question. Immediately, his mind throws him the images of Gun, and Suit, and his lips twist.

“We don’t need anyone but us,” he says. His mind flashes back to the man with the gun, but he meets her eyes steadily. “What do you think?”

The eyebrow goes back up. “You’re the one who went on recon of this place,” she says, tone dry. “If you say you’d rather it be just the two of us, I’ll defer to your judgment.”

Nodding, his eyes flick from her to the papers, case notes, sprawled all over her desk “Go over the current evidence with me. Then we can prioritise the locations and ask Chabouillet to send more squads out tonight. We can’t let them go underground again.”

Montoya gives him a long, searching gaze. Javert meets it, holds it, until she nods and turns away, stubbing her cigarette out on her ashtray.

“Right,” she says. Picking up a stack of papers, she perches on her desk and hands them over to him. He takes them.

“This one,” she points at a specific thumbtack, “is for the motel at Fifty-Ninth Avenue. Chabouillet got me their staff records from the Department of Labor. They’re all clean, but the 911 call rates from the motel itself has spiked since four weeks ago.”

Lifting himself up to half-sit, half-lean against the windowsill, Javert starts to read. He focuses on the words. 

It’s a good thing that he’ll finally be going to the bar as an officer instead of… instead of whatever he has been. The bastards there should have been arrested a long time ago.

Distantly, he finds himself hoping that the bar won’t close, and Frank won’t lose his job over this. It will not be just for a decent man to have to suffer for misdoings of others.

***

For reasons he cannot fully comprehend, Javert’s word still holds water with Chabouillet, and they are granted a search warrant for the bar. But he ends up with more than just Montoya anyway: Petersen wanted in because “I got you the information, you bastards,” Falk tags behind his senior partner like a puppy, and Chabouillet treats his refusal as nothing more than the wind blowing.

It’s almost disappointing when no patrons of the bar put up a fight when they see four fully-armed and uniformed police officers demand for all of them to freeze. Javert does not look for Frank, but he sees him anyway: hands frozen in mid-motion of pouring out beer. The thick yellow liquid spills over the glass, missing the sink and spreading out on the metal counter behind the bar.

He lets Montoya take the backroom with Petersen, and starts to check the identification of every single patron. 

Falk is corralling around half a dozen boys to the corner – all underaged, some even below fucking sixteen. Javert has a pile of guns on the table to check the licenses for, and he’s using his own to nudge one of the brutes over to the side when Montoya walks back to him. Out of the corner of his eyes, he watches as Petersen comes out of the backroom and head straight for the bar.

When Montoya lifts up the small ziplocked bag, he’s not even surprised.

“We need a full drug analysis of this for confirmation,” she says without prompting. “But we have more than enough in the backroom to have the right to call for a drug test for every single person here.”

Javert cocks his head. “What did you find?”

“This,” she waves the bag, shifting it to two fingers before starting to count off the others. “Meth. Crack.” A pause. She grimaces. “Three fucking chickens full of heroin.”

He blinks. “Is that a metaphor, or is it literal?” No one can tell on this job.

“I only fucking wish it was a metaphor,” Montoya rolls her eyes. “After we checked the alcohol shelves, Petersen insisted on checking the fridge. He stuck his fingers up every whole chicken’s ass.”

Javert can’t help it: he chuckles. The mental image is clear: the black Petersen, built like a brick shithouse and even bigger than Javert himself, shoving his fingers up chicken butts in his eternally-scowling glory while Montoya stares askance beside him.

“Well, he’s right,” he shrugs. He makes to continue, but stops. Montoya is staring at him. 

She blinks when he meets her gaze, and shakes her head. “So what are we going to do now? You’re the most senior here. You call the shots.”

Looking around him, he sighs. “We take them all in, put them through a drug test,” he says. “Prep a medic during the tests, because I can bet my entire salary that at least one of the kids has been drugged.” There’s one that’s now lying flat on a booth seat; the same one that Falk keeps looking worriedly towards.

“We’ll probably have to book most of them.” He hesitates for a moment, eyes lingering on the boys. Most of them are even younger than those kids at the— no, not the time. “But we’ll see if these kids have parents or anywhere else to go.”

He slides his eyes towards her. “You want to take that?”

“What?” Montoya blinks. “You mean checking their records for parents?”

“Yeah.”

“I can do that,” she nods. She hesitates for a moment, gaze turning speculative. “But if there’s nowhere else to go and if they’ve committed nothing else but underage drinking, then…”

Those will probably be the same kids who don’t have the kind of money or resources for falsified identification, so they can’t book them for that. 

Not for the first time in the past few months, Javert suddenly, viciously hates his job. He lets out a sigh. “Give them to Petersen,” he says. “He’ll know what to do. He’s the one with that case.”

Montoya opens her mouth. But before she can do anything, there’s a commotion behind her.

Javert is already moving before he even fully takes in what is going on. Frank has a gun and he’s pointing it towards Petersen, whose hand is on his own piece but he hasn’t drawn it yet. They are yelling something Javert doesn’t even bother to listen to.

He grabs the edge of the bar and swings himself over it. Before either of them can react, he kicks Frank in the hand, ankle hitting wrist. The gun flies into the air, and Javert only watches it long enough to see Petersen catch it before it can go off, because he’s already grabbing Frank by the wrist, shoving him over the bar.

“Add assaulting an office for this one,” he says, and handcuffs him. He tries to not think about the taste of Frank’s tongue in his own mouth, or even the familiar heat of his skin. He puts handcuffs over those wrists instead, pulling on the chain to drag him upwards. 

“Javert, duck!”

Montoya’s voice. He obeys it immediately, grabbing Frank by his hair and pushing him down. Bottles shatter behind him, glass shards spilling outwards.

He swears, practically shoving Frank under his arm as he sweeps the scarf he still wears over his head.

There’s more yelling. There are very solid _thumps_.

“Anyone else wants to try their luck?” Montoya again. She sounds absolutely pissed. “Anyone else wants to try to fucking shoot at the fucking police?”

Javert makes a mental note to tell her to stop heckling the perps, but it seems to have worked. Maybe it’s the look on her face – he can’t tell, but there’s the sound of metal clattering over cheap plastic. 

“Falk, for fuck’s sake, stop fussing over that kid like a hen and sweep the guns up as evidence,” Montoya says.

Only when he hears the steady thudding of metal being dropped into plastic bags that he peers over the counter. Petersen has a man – white, broad-shouldered, face twisted into a snarl – on his knees in front of him, his gun pointed to his head. Montoya has her own piece out and she is right at the bar, swivelling the barrel steadily from one side to another. There are glass shards in her hair.

“Safe?” he calls out.

“One minute,” she says. “Falk, move your ass.”

“Stop abusing the one guy who is more junior than you are,” Javert says, unable to stop the amusement from creeping into his voice.

She snorts, but doesn’t take her eyes away from the scene to look at him – good. He ducks back down behind the bar. Frank has been quiet, incredibly so even for a perp. (That’s all he is. That’s _all_ he is.) Javert turns, and immediately regrets that decision. 

Those eyes are fixed on his neck. On the exposed bruises. There’s a light in them that makes Javert’s skin crawl.

As casually as he can, he pulls the scarf off of his head, dislodging some of the shards, and tucks it back around his neck again. He grabs onto the handcuffs’ chain, and drags Frank up to his feet along with him.

“— can actually defend myself, you know,” Falk is saying.

“Middle-schoolers need to be quiet and watch,” Montoya drawls.

Javert drags Frank out from behind the bar before shoving him towards the rest of the over-age men in the corner. He casts a cursory glance towards them – somehow, there’s no one he recognises. He tries to not feel relief at the thought – those men should be arrested – but he can’t muster up the strength.

Shoving that away, he turns back to Montoya. 

“If you’re done, have you called for the truck yet?”

“I have,” Petersen tells him. He nudges at Frank almost inquisitively with his gun. “The moment the gunshot happened, actually.”

Nodding, Javert looks over his – it’s instinctive by now. “You have glass in your hair,” he tells her.

She flicks it a little. Little shards fall off to litter the ground. She crunches one under her foot.

“You should lend me your scarf then,” she says archly.

It takes all of Javert’s self-control to not flinch. The last thing he wants is for his partner to see the bruises, though he suspects that she already knows that something is there – he usually doesn’t deviate from the standard uniform.

“No,” he turns away. “You’ll survive until you can take a shower.”

Her gaze on him is nearly suffocating. He ignores it. 

He tries to.

***

Javert volunteers for booking duty because Petersen and Falk are already pulling overtime and this isn’t their case, and Montoya needs to take a shower before she gets glass everywhere in the precinct. They try to protest – “You nearly got _shot_ , man,” Petersen says – but he practically bullies them away.

They go. This probably adds to his reputation that he has nothing else but his job, but his reason is far more selfish this time: he needs to deal with Frank alone. 

So he leaves him for the last. The drugs collected have already been sent to forensics and the kids all have their blood drawn by the time Frank is dragged in by Rodriguez, one of the currently on-duty officers in the station. Javert nods at him, and Rodriguez wisely leaves.

Frank looks half-faded: his hair is lank around his face, and there are heavy circles under his eyes and a pale gauntness to his cheeks. But he smiles – _smiles_ , goddammit – when he sees Javert.

“I was hoping that it’d be you,” he says, leaning forward. “You know me. You know I’m—”

“Save it,” Javert states flatly. He looks at Frank, eyes narrowing. “If I check your financial records, will I find laundered money? If I get a search warrant for your apartment, will I find out more about the kind of things you do to afford that television and those books?”

Silence. Javert takes a step forward. Even though he knows he should not feel pleased – he is only doing his job, after all – he can’t help the frisson of it that goes through him.

“You’re not going to do that,” Frank says.

“Oh?” Javert raises an eyebrow.

That damnable smile widens. Has it always been so smug, so sinister?

“Because if you do, I’ll tell them what I know,” he says, leaning forward as much as his cuffed arms will allow. “I’ll tell them about you. I’ll tell them all I know about how much you like sucking cock in a filthy restroom.”

Javert’s breath catches in his throat. He should have expected this. Yet it still takes him by surprise.

His expression seems to have changed, because Frank’s eyes gleam even more.

“Do you really think that we don’t know who you are?” He smirks, “We talk about you, _Detective_. We talk about what a cock-hungry slut you are. How you’re turned on by the kind of shit snuff films are made of. You book me now, and I’ll tell every single person in this damned station your filthy little secrets.”

 _We_. Of course Frank knows the others. There will be need for interrogation, and if there is… if there is…

Now it is Javert’s turn to smile, twisted and bitter. He rests his hands on the metal table of the booking room, fingers splayed, as he leans in.

“Do you really think,” he repeats, deliberately mocking though his heart is roaring in his ears, “that I can be blackmailed?”

His smile widens even further, baring teeth. “Go ahead. Tell them.”

The evidence is obvious; Frank deserves to be arrested. If Javert ends up losing his job, his one sole reason to wake up in the morning, then so be it.

( _Once, you thought him a good man_.)

Frank’s eyes widen. But Javert doesn’t have time to push the point when the man throws himself forward, nearly smashing his face into Javert’s nose.

“Well, if not, then how about this: do you know why we managed to get away from you that time?”

 _Get away_. That abandoned warehouse. Javert ruthlessly stifles his emotions.

He spreads out an arm. “Enlighten me,” he says, managing still to drawl out his voice.

“We got away,” Frank says, and the bastard is deliberately dragging out every word, “because we _recognise you_ , Detective. You see, the moment you’ve seen a man on his knees with his face covered with come… you’ll recognise him everywhere. No matter the clothes.”

Oh.

“And I’m not sure if you noticed, but you’re not very inconspicuous, Detective.”

 _Oh_.

 _Don’t clench your hands_ , he reminds himself. _Don’t show any weakness_. Not even when he feels those words like a saw blade slashing over and over inside his chest. Not even when he feels them cut all the way down to the bone. There is one thing that he has always been, one thing that still has some kind of meaning: his uniform, his badge. He thought…

He thought that if he left them behind, he could become someone else.

But then again, he should’ve learned months ago that he has never been good at hiding. He has never been good at pretending to be what he isn’t. All he has been doing all along is to fool himself.

“I think,” he says. His voice somehow still calm though it echoes hollowly in his ears and around the bleeding wounds in his chest. There is metal in his mouth, but he does not swallow.

“You’re not a very good blackmailer, Frank.”

He’s not going to try to pretend to be what he is not. Not anymore. No more bars, no more men.

No more pretence at mercy. What’s the point?

So he reaches out. His hand is filthy, all of him, and Frank confirms it: he flinches when Javert curls his fingers around his cheeks.

Javert clenches his fingers around Frank’s jaw, pulling him back up to his feet. Then he walks around the table, forcing the other man to turn before his hand shifts into his hair, dragging his head back and baring his throat. Every movement makes something scream inside him, but he’s used to that too, so he ignores it.

“Go ahead. Tell them all of that,” he says. He shoves Frank forward until he starts to walk towards the door. “But you’ll also have to confess to trying to drug me.”

He laughs a little, the sound high-pitched and horrible. “That’s a hell of a charge to add onto the list.”

Frank’s head smacks against the heavy metal door of the booking room. He turns his cheek. “I thought you didn’t figure it out,” he gasps out.

Javert laughs again. “Fool me once…” 

(How many times is it? How many times has he blinded himself out of his own damned selfishness?)

Gripping tighter on the chain, he turns his shoulder and pressing against the spot in between Frank’s shoulderblades with it. He waits until the man starts to struggle, and does it again.

The screaming inside his head is growing a little too loud. He shuts it off; ignores it.

“Are you going to?”

“I...” Frank gasps again. Distantly, Javert wonders if this is how _he_ sounds like whenever he is being fucked. What kind of pleasure do those men get from it? All he feels now is disgust; all he sees now, in this room, is filth.

“I’m not going to,” Frank says when Javert slowly tightens his fingers in his hair. Experimentally, he smacks his face against the door. “I’m not going to tell! I won’t tell!”

“Good,” Javert says. He’s smiling still, the smile with no mirth and too many teeth.

Dragging Frank back, he pushes him to the chair. Then he perches on the edge of the table and pick up the clipboard he left there when Rodriguez dropped Frank off. He unclips the pen.

“Back to business,” he says, voice crisp. “Full name?”

Frank is still staring at him. Javert cocks his head. He flips his pen around, and drags the back of it over Frank’s throat. He holds it there.

“Welch,” Frank says, swallowing. Javert removes the pen. “Frank Welch.”

“Occupation?”

“Bartender,” he closes his eyes. Javert waits. “I sell drugs as a side income.”

“Mm,” he nods, and puts that down. “Don’t change your mind about that later.”

“You can’t—” Frank tries to protest, but he cuts himself off when the pen returns to where it has been. “I… I won’t.”

“Good,” Javert nods again. “Date of birth?”


	4. Part Four

The lights here are different: brighter, more sunset-orange than sick-yellow. The music from the speakers comes through clearly instead of being broken up periodically by static, and it’s not pop songs either – some sort of jazz, or classical; he can’t really tell. 

There are still boys lingering on the corners, but they are better-clothed, and desperation does not stick on them so; they are well-fed peacocks, not starved chicks. There are still men sitting at the booths, but they come in pairs, their bodies curved towards each other as they converse in murmurs. Their fingers on their glasses are perfect mirrors of each other. He looks away.

It’s a bar in a better part of the town, far more northerly than the last he was in. So much better that he does not belong here; not with the filth that sticks upon his skin and yet no one else can see.

But it is a bar, nonetheless. It is a bar, and Javert has told another lie.

 _Not yet_ , he thinks to himself. _Not yet_. He hasn’t asked any of the men to fuck him yet, and he’s not going to. He’s not going to.

He walks up to the bar and takes a seat. The bartender is a man in his late-twenties with a Mohawk and more metal than ears bracketing his head. He smiles at the sight of Javert.

“You must be new,” he says.

Javert shrugs. He opens his mouth – he knows what he wants, this time, and it’s not going to be cheap beer. He can’t drink beer anymore without the sour taste of Frank’s mouth returning to his tongue.

(Drug possession. Multiple charges of drug trafficking from witnesses in the same bar. Trial in three or so months. From experience, Javert knows he’ll get up to fifteen years. He tells himself that it’s enough. He tells himself that it’s enough if he testifies as arresting officer, not as potential victim. He tells himself that he’s not letting a criminal go free.

He has never been good at lying.)

“Let me guess,” the bartender interrupts before he can speak. “Whiskey soda?”

Immediately, Javert straightens. He leans forward, resting his elbows on the marble slab that makes up the bar.

“How did you know that?” If someone recognises him even _here_ , he needs to get out immediately.

( _Fool me once…_ )

The bartender laughs. His hands busy themselves with pouring drinks, as if Javert’s presence is not nearly intimidating enough to take all of his attention.

“It’s just a hobby of mine,” he says, smiling crookedly. There is a ring in the centre of his lip. “I like to guess the kind of drinks that someone wants before they ask for it.”

He cocks his head. “Am I right?”

“No,” Javert says, though he is. His skin crawls at the thought of being so easily read. His fist clenches, knuckles digging into polished marble. “Whiskey sour.”

Honestly, he had no idea what that is, much less what it looks like.

The bartender laughs again. The sound grates. Thankfully, he moves away.

Javert turns and looks at the bar again. The music has changed, turning into something that’s still soft and soothing, but with a distinctive beat. He watches, head resting on a fist, as one of the men in the booth tugs his companion out. Their arms wrap around each other, and they start swaying around the area of the booth. A passing waiter avoids them, hands steadying his tray, and there is a fond, indulgent look in his eyes.

He’s not going to find what he needs here; he can already tell. All he’ll do is get his drink and leave. Then he won’t be a liar again.

(Or he’ll be worse of one.)

“Here you go. Whiskey sour.” 

It’s a light orange-yellow thing in a squat glass, and there is a cherry and a lemon on top. There is also a tiny, thin straw. Javert looks at the garnishes, plucks them out, and dumps them onto the coaster. He picks up the glass – it’s heftier than it looks – and knocks back a mouthful.

The alcohol burns as it goes down. It’s somehow heavier than he imagined it to be. The lemon lingers on his tongue, filling his nose with the scent of soap. He sets the glass back down.

“So why did you decide to visit here?”

“Do you always ask so many questions?” Javert raises his eyebrows.

The bartender laughs again. Further down the bar, a man stands up. He brings his glass with him. Javert’s gaze follows, and watches as he embraces a new arrival, and they walk towards one of the corner tables together.

“We don’t really get guys like you around here,” the bartender says. He’s damnably persistent. 

“Guys like me,” Javert repeats flatly.

“Tall, broad, looking like you can kill a person by looking at them.” A flash of white, white teeth. “Guys like you.”

Javert barks a laugh. He looks over to the rest of the customers. “Yeah.”

“So why here?”

 _Well, I had this dream,_ he imagines saying. _There’s this man, you see. I haunted him throughout most of his existence like some kind of bogeyman, and now karma has come to bite me full in the ass because now he’s haunting me. I let him go, I can’t ever see him again, but he haunts me. But not like a bogeyman, because you don’t want to be fucked by a bogeyman. Have you ever seen a man so strong that he can lift anyone without getting much winded? No? If you see him, you’ve have seen a man like that. I dreamed about him fucking me until I bleed. I dream about him strangling me while he uses me. And so I come here because I’m trying to look for someone who can do that because I know that he won’t._

Maybe it’ll shut the bartender up. He downs the rest of his drink instead.

“The sign is interesting.”

That’s the truth. The name of the bar is _The Ivy and the Quinn._ He has no idea what the second is and how it has anything to do with an annoying plant. So he walked in, and realised that being in this place is even worse than being pricked by a thousand poison ivy vines.

“Oh!” The bartender brightens. “Do you want to know the story behind it?”

Javert smiles. It does not reach his eyes, and shows too many teeth.

“No,” he says. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have come.”

Drawing out his wallet, he slaps down a couple of bills without bothering to look. It’s around twenty bucks; should be enough for the drink and the tip, no matter how high they jack up the prices around here.

He walks out of the bar before the bartender can say another word. ( _That’s one lie you didn’t tell, then._ ) Then he keeps on walking. He’ll call it aimless if he doesn’t know exactly where his feet are taking him to.

The Bay’s docks smell like a mixture of sea and sewage; clean salt weighed down by the stench of piss. It’s a familiar smell. If he opens his mouth and breathes in deeply enough, he remembers what it feels like to sink down as water rushes in, filling his lungs, squeezing the air out of him.

It’ll be so easy for him to keep walking until there is no more road, until his feet hit nothing but the sea. 

In the distance, he sees the Island with its pretty little suburban houses. A ferry goes past, white waters following its tracks. Javert watches and feels the cool breeze sneak past his shirt, pressing against his chest, his throat. The bruises are long gone, but if he concentrates enough…

He’s haunted. Not by ghosts – it can’t be so easy, of course. No, what dogs his heels are not formless, shapeless things. He knows exactly what they are: the frame that brackets every single one of them is made out of his desires, his hopeless-helpless wants. 

The eagerly-dragging waters of the Bay. The constancy of stars. A world that makes sense. The ability to look himself in the mirror and not feel disgust.

Valjean.

His lips twist. He gives a bitter smile towards the light-polluted skies, towards nothingness. No, these are the things he cannot have. 

The tide will be coming in soon. He watches the waters as they lap at the wooden planks beneath his feet. In the distance, he can hear voices: dock workers coming in for work, most likely. He turns his back on the Bay.

He goes back to his apartment even though he knows that there isn’t much of a point: he’s not going to get much sleep. But the station has Montoya and Chabouillet and their sympathetic eyes, and that is far worse than the stretched-hollow silence he has grown used to.

***

_It always begins the same way:_

_Darkness. Whole and hollow; a black hole devouring. Though he has managed to escape from other dreams before, he has never been able to pull himself out of this one. Not once. Not ever._

_This time, he tries stubbornly to not advance it. But it doesn’t listen and never has._

_He hears it starting now: repetitive thuds, like heartbeats, but meatier. A sudden_ crack _. The sound of a voice: a man crying out, “Please I beg y-” before there is a sharper_ crack _, and he makes a sound like he is drowning in his own blood._

_“We’ve warned you enough times ‘bout this.”_

_Prison drills into the insides of men’s throats, turning voices deep and rough after enough time. Any silk turns to sandpaper quickly enough after constantly being filed by screams of rage or of pain._

_A hand lands on his hair, stroking and caressing. Javert’s breath trips, and he realises suddenly that the darkness around him is a blindfold. A short distance away, the man screams again before it cuts off with a harsh cough-choke. The voice is familiar, but he cannot place it._

_“How did you manage to accomplish_ this _?” the hand in his hair tightens. Javert tips his head, trying to lean away from those fingers. But they grip even tighter._

_“He’s not so tough when he’s no taller than you,” another voice replies. “All we needed to do is to get him down from that high pedestal he’s always standing on.”_

_There is a chill beneath his knees that spreads backwards to his calves and ankles. He is kneeling, he realises. He is on his knees with a man’s rough hand in his hair. He bites the inside of his cheek. Though he knows it is nothing but a dream, it feels so incredibly solid. So incredibly_ real _._

_“You’ve done a good job,” the first voice says. Javert’s eyes widen uselessly in the darkness when he recognises that voice. That one exception to the rough sandpaper of prison voices._

_Even neck-deep in his sentence, Valjean has always sounded like dark, nearly-bitter honey. Thicker than molasses, but incredibly smooth. Everything that should be impossible after nineteen years, and yet true._

_“Look at him,” Valjean continues. His hand moves to curl over Javert’s nape, fingers clenching around the thin little strands at the base. He pulls back, baring Javert’s throat. Rough fingers run from his forehead down to his mouth, then to his throat._

_“For a man who doesn’t look much, he kneels real pretty.”_

_Javert parts his lips, gasping as those fingers press into the base of his throat lightly. Air gathers there, straining against his windpipe, and he tries to shake his head._

_Then he’s dragged upwards. The next thing he knows, he’s pressed against the wall. Concrete dust smears over his lips and tongue._

_“You like him? Good,” the second man says. “It’s my gift for helping out.”_

_The vowels. That voice. That is Frank’s voice. Javert whines, trying to pull backwards, fingers twitching as he tries to take off the blindfold._

_Valjean’s hands grab both of his wrists, pressing them against the small of Javert’s back._

_“Oh, I like him alright,” he says. His words are punctuated by another stifled scream matched with a hitching half-sob._

_He recognises_ that _voice too. It is his own. His chest aches from phantom broken bones._

_“You used to stand over to the side,” Valjean murmurs, his breath scorch-hot on Javert’s ear and neck. “Arms crossed, legs spread,” he kicks Javert’s ankles apart, and his hand tugs at his belt. “Always looking so properly approving whenever we were kicked around.”_

_His belt – the thin, black leather belt of his prison guard uniform – curls around his neck. Valjean’s entire body presses against him, forcing his face against the wall. His back arches, trying to buck him off instinctively, but Valjean only takes the chance to slide the belt over his neck. He loops it once, buckles it, and Javert’s head jerks back hard when he tugs on the long end like a leash._

_“Did you get off on it?” Valjean asks. His voice is growing cold, the chill of decades ago seeping inside. “Did you look at our bruises, our broken bones, as you dragged us off to the infirmary, and then go back to your room and jerk off on it?”_

_The belt tightens. Javert chokes, unable to answer. The leather digs straight into his skin, pressing hard against his windpipe. The metal of the buckle scrape insistently against his nape. He gasps, clawing at the wall in front of him. Concrete: he feels his nails peel and start to bleed._

_“I—” the leather loosens again. Valjean’s fingers stroke over his skin; almost soothing,_ almost _, for the tips press hard against the forming bruises._

_He gasps again, helplessly. His head lowers, chin brushing the top of the belt. He breaks the nails of the other hand._

_“You… what?”_

_Javert swallows. It burns sharper than any alcohol he has ever tasted._

_“I was just doing my job,” he says. His voice shakes._

_“Yes,” Valjean agrees. His lips ghost over Javert’s ear, his beard scraping over the curve. He kisses Javert’s neck, above the belt. Javert feels him smile, the twisted-thinness of it._

_“You did your duty, nothing more.”_

_The belt pulls_ tight _—_

 __Javert jerks awake. He wrenches his hand away from where it is on his own neck, grabbing onto the pillow behind him and shoving it over his face.

He’s hard, cock already leaking from the dream. He squeezes the length. His nails scrape over the underside as he jerks hard and fast. Just as he knows he’s about to come, he stops. He grips his own thigh, hard enough to feel bone against his fingertips. He shoves the tips of his fingers inside himself, nails scraping against the barely-healed rim. Pain surrounds him, encloses him. He holds onto it, and starts to jerk himself off again.

When he feels himself starting to come, he pushes down on the pillow. His breathing cuts off. His lungs screams for air. The darkness is greying at the edges. He comes.

There is salt on his tongue and fire-born stars in his eyes. Javert shakes, his grip loosening on the pillow involuntarily even though he doesn’t want to. He can still feel Valjean’s breath on his skin.

Sitting up, he stares at himself. Even in the dim-darkness of his room, lit only by the barest hint of streetlamps from the outside, he sees the way his pants are pulled down, his legs spread. Sticky-white drips from his hand, soaking into cloth. His skin is covered by it.

Javert closes his eyes. He draws up his knees, dropping his head on them. He has to stop this… this obsession. This need for someone who is long gone and whom he never had anyway.

But his fingers are in his mouth. The salt of his tears mixes with the bitterness of his come.

The city is quiet. The air is cold. 

He cleans himself up and goes back to sleep even though there is no more reason for him to wake up anymore.

***

“You were really rude the last time you came.”

Perhaps it’s desperation. Perhaps it’s a form of masochism. But, somehow, Javert finds himself back here again. He really should stop counting his lies: he’s going to run out of numbers soon.

“Whiskey sour again?”

He can’t help but snort. “Do you always remember the drinks of every asshole you meet?” he asks.

The bartender stares at him. Those hands, constantly moving and shifting, still completely. Javert can’t help but watch, fascinated, and those fingers link, and unlink. Dark eyes dart towards him. Then the bartender clears his throat, and scratches the side of his nose with a finger. With that one motion, he suddenly looks terribly young, too young to even step into this bar, much less be working for it.

“Only the ones who are hot,” he admits finally.

Now it is Javert’s time to freeze. Long blond hair and a snarl flash at the back of his eyelids. Y _ou see, the moment you’ve seen a man on his knees with his face covered with come… you’ll recognise him everywhere_.

He takes a deep breath. His nails dig deep into his palm.

“Do all bartenders have an agreement to hit on their customers at least once per night?” he raises an eyebrow. “Or am I just that lucky?”

Whiskey sour hits the bar hard. Glass _clinks_ against marble, piercing and sharp. Javert blinks. The voices around them stop suddenly; Javert turns his eyes away. The bartender ducks his head, lifting the glass again. He puts a coaster down, and moves to take the drink away.

“It’s fine,” Javert says. He takes the glass, careful to not touch those fingers – because this man in front of him still has innocence, and he’s not going to corrupt him more than he already has – and takes a gulp of it. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Did another bartender hit on you?” The question seems to erupt out of the man. “Was he so absolute crap at it that… that a guy can’t pay someone else a compliment anymore?”

Javert gapes for a moment. He searches his memory of the past thirty seconds, wondering what it is that he just said that would give an impression like that. After a moment, he shrugs.

“It’s a free country,” he says.

The bartender opens his mouth. But before he can speak, there is the sound of quiet footsteps. Leather shoes, a limping leg that’s not recently broken—

“Hey, Clarence.”

That voice. Javert freezes. Every part of him locks into place. 

“Are you alright? You look kind of…” it trails off.

He hasn’t been noticed. Javert ducks his head and turns away. He pulls out bills, not even caring what they are, and puts them on the bar. Then, as calmly as he can, he jumps off of the barstool, and tries to leave.

There is a hand on his arm. The grip is vice-tight, fingers sinking through skin and muscles to imprint themselves on his bones. His breath trips on his throat.

“Thanks,” Valjean says, clearly still not addressing Javert himself. “I owe you one.”

“Anything for Cosette’s dad,” the bartender – Clarence, there goes the vague idea he had – says. 

“Let me go.”

Oh. That is his own voice. Javert squeezes his eyes shut, keeps his eyes turned away. He will not look at him. He will not.

“Javert—”

He wrenches his arm out of the grip before Valjean can continue the sentence, immediately striding out of the bar. A part of his mind is laughing rather hysterically that the hunter is now the hunted; he has become such a coward – such a worthless piece of trash – that he has resorted to running away. 

But he doesn’t take more than five steps before he’s grabbed again. This time, by the wrist, and Valjean shoves him against the wall right outside the bar. The air is practically kicked out of his chest, and Javert presses his eyes shut even further.

“Why will you not look at me?” Valjean asks, and there is- God, there is such pain in his voice.

“I can’t,” Javert says. He slaps his hand over his eyes, refusing the urge to open them. “I can’t. If I see you, I’ll have to arrest you. I’m obliged to arrest you. But if I don’t see you, I can pretend,” at least in the shallowest of ways, “that I haven’t, and I don’t know where you are.”

There is a sharp intake of breath. “Oh,” Valjean says, wonderingly.

“Leave,” Javert says, barely able to keep his voice steady. His fingers shake, drumming nonsensically over the sides of his own eyes.

“Let me go. Live out your life with your daughter. Do whatever it is you’re doing. Just… just _go_.”

“I’m not going to go,” Valjean says. Then Javert feels a hand on his wrist, tugging on it. He tries to hold on, but Valjean has _always_ been the stronger man.

He keeps his eyes still squeezed-shut even when his hand drops back to his side.

“Please look at me,” Valjean says. “Please, Javert. I need to ask you a question, and I need to look you in the eyes when you answer.”

“Don’t you understand?” Javert snarls out, hands clenched by his sides. “If I see you, then I’ll have to—”

“You saw me twice without arresting me,” Valjean says, and Javert falls silent immediately. He knows that voice, that tone – it is not of the man who is known as Cosette’s father. It is not of the man who joined the barricades to save a boy. 

It’s the mayor’s voice, and Javert still has no way of overriding it.

He wants to laugh. He can practically order a bug check in Chabouillet’s office, but he still can’t disobey M. Madeleine.

“Even now,” Valjean continues, his grip on Javert’s wrist loosening slightly, “you’re talking to me. You know my address.” A deep breath. “Javert, _please_.”

The mayor argues, but the man pleads. There are no ends to the contradictions of this man. Javert shudders, sucking in air through his teeth.

Slowly, he opens his eyes.

 _Skinnier_ , he notices immediately. There is a hollowness to Valjean’s cheeks that he has never seen on the man before; not even in prison. The lines around the eyes are mouth are deeper as well, capturing the shadows cast by the streetlamp. 

“My eyes are open,” he stares dully. His gaze jerks away from Valjean to stare at the brick wall. “What do you want to ask me?”

He hears Valjean take a deep breath. “Why do you not want to arrest me?”

Laughter bursts out of him before he even realises it. Javert throws his head back, smacking it against the wall behind him. But the pain is inconsequential, completely so, and his shoulders shake and shake. The sound he makes is like a wolf’s howling mixed with a hyena’s screech, and it echoes and echoes down the streets.

“Javert,” Valjean begins. Javert shakes his head.

“Because you’re a good man,” he gasps out. His lips are curved upwards, stretching far beyond any smile he has ever given. His cheeks ache from it. “You’re a good man, Valjean, and you don’t deserve to go to jail.”

He laughs again. “Look at me. I’m learning something about justice.”

“But,” Valjean protests. “It would have been justice. It would have been right. I did break parole.” 

Javert shoves his hand over his mouth, teeth sinking into the fleshly part of his palm to stifle the incoming laughter. He should have known. Only Valjean would be contradictory enough to actually _want_ to be arrested, and argue for the righteousness of it.

“It would have been lawful,” Javert says, drawling out every word. “But it would have been unjust.”

He spreads his hands outward, still grinning like a madman. “See. I have learned the difference as well.”

Valjean looks at him. There’s a darkness and sorrow in his eyes that Javert does not understand. He does not understand why Valjean is still here, why he has not left Javert the moment he received his answers.

“I think,” he says, tone cautious. “I think we should be having this conversation on the street.”

“There is no more need for conversation,” Javert tells him, jerking his head away to stare at the wall again. The bricks are flaking off at some parts. It’s interesting. “And if you want to go back in, then… then go ahead.”

His smile widens even further, turning grotesque. His cheeks ache deeply from it. “It’s a free country.”

“I… don’t really like drinking,” Valjean says. He pauses, as if hesitating. “But… I have tea at my house. I have coffee. We can talk there.”

Javert’s eyes dart back towards him, widening. “You’re inviting me back to your house,” he says, incredulity twining around every word, nearly thick enough to strangle. “ _Me_.”

“You,” Valjean nods. He looks down for a minute before he rubs the back of his neck, thumb grazing over the tattoo just peeking out from his shirt. “I’ve been trying to find you to… to invite you for tea or coffee. Whichever one you like.”

He takes another breath. “I’ve been trying to find you for weeks. Even since I heard that you have returned to duty.”

“ _Why_?” The word bursts out of him without even needing his mind to ask.

“I’ll answer that,” Valjean says. “In my house.”

Javert stares at him. Of _course_ ; he should have known. No matter if it is in prison, or a small town, or in a city; no matter if it is his gaze, his loyalty, or what broken-brittle pieces of himself remaining… 

Valjean has always been able to trap him.

Closing his eyes, he rubs a hand over his face. It is trembling. He shoves them into his pockets.

“I’m only going to learn why you’re being unreasonable enough to try to find a man who should be arresting you on sight,” he says. His voice sounds dull and hollow to his own ears.

“That’s fine,” Valjean tells him. He takes a step back from Javert, hands brushing at his cuffs, neatening them. “That should be enough time for one cup of tea. Or coffee.”

Javert nods. He waits there, back still pressed against the wall, until Valjean starts to move. 

He should leave. He should run. Valjean won’t be able to catch up to him. He won’t come back to this bar again.

But he’s walking, following behind Valjean as if pulled by an invisible thread that binds their bodies together. 

When he starts to walk, Valjean looks back. He gives him a small, tentative smile.

Javert closes his eyes, and looks away.

_End_

**Author's Note:**

> .. Uhm. Honestly, most of this isn’t my fault.
> 
> Dear Esteliel, I read through the entire tag you linked. I also read through the other tags of the same vein. After that, I went through the entire list of prompts for the exchange that you _also_ linked. My brain simply decided to smush everything together. So technically, it’s entirely your fault. I just hope that it’s coherent.


End file.
